


no direction (but its own bright grace)

by fatsuffices (wrenchwench)



Category: Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, but you're never gonna read this so it doesn't really matter, i will write every ridiculous au this fandom needs, nobody's dead and everything is okay, nonsense mermaid au, sorry robin hobb!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenchwench/pseuds/fatsuffices
Summary: The water is deep, and dark, and dangerous; it holds many secrets.(Okay, so I'm done being pretentious - this is basically ROTE/Little-Mermaidesque bullshit. No apologies for cliché! This fandom needs it.)





	1. Chapter 1

“Fitz, if you don’t stop sighing back there, I will kick you out of the car and make you walk the rest of the way.”

I looked up from my phone, then immediately turned my head to look out the window instead. That way I didn’t have to watch as Patience, hands still on the wheel, turned round to glare at me. If I couldn’t see her doing it, I could pretend I was still safe. 

From the corner of my eye, I saw Chivalry lean over and gently nudge the wheel back into alignment with the road.

“We’ve been travelling for nearly five hours, dear. He probably wants to stretch his legs, isn’t that right, Fitz? Try rolling the window down, that’ll help. Can’t be long now, anyway.”

Cool air flooded across my face as I rolled the window down cautiously. Last time it’d smelled like cow shit, but this time all I could smell was sharp brine and seaweed. I leaned out of the window - probably inadvisably far, but there was nobody else on the road, so getting my head taken off by a truck was unlikely. The sun was beginning to set, although this far into summer it wouldn’t ever get dark properly. I twisted to watch a pair of gulls bickering as they flew, as graceful in the air as they were on the ground - that was to say, not very. They screamed as if in rejection of my thoughts, and vanished off ahead of the car, beyond my view.

The car rose to the ridge of the hill and I drew myself back inside, hair momentarily fluttering across my face and obscuring my vision. I sat heavily back into his seat and undid my hair tie, feeling the breeze from the window immediately ruin any chance I’d had of putting it into order. I shrugged and decided to leave it as it was. Patience would soon let me know if it was unacceptably untidy.

“There it is, boys! Oh, and it’s gone. That was quick.”

“Lovely,” said Chivalry. 

“What,” I said, scooting forward in my seat to shove my face between them in the way I knew Chivalry tolerated and Patience did not tolerate. Sure enough, her hand swatted at me almost immediately.

“Stop that! Do you know how dangerous it is to distract the driver?”

“You were the one who turned around earlier,” I objected, but with no real heat behind it. “What did I miss, Patience?”

“Nothing.”

Chivalry shook his head. “You’ll see at the next hill, Fitz.”

Patience turned the radio on, flicking quickly through several stations.

 

_ ‘-he fumbles-’ ‘-very important-’ ‘-keeps your skin moist!-’ ‘-change, change, change-’ ‘-tablishing the main goal, money-’  ‘-certainly very dangerous, although may not look it-’ _

 

“Ugh,” she said eloquently, and nudged Chivalry, who rummaged in his pocket and tugged out a music player.

“Put on something nice, please. No lyrics. And no jazz! I’m not in the mood. Make it.. wistful. Happy, but wistful.”

And as I wondered over the description she’d given, Chivalry appeared to understand completely.

“At once,” he said, and  [ soft piano ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWzvzDCLFN4) filled the car. 

“Very nice,” said Patience, and then we all stopped talking for a while, because we had crested the final hill. The landscape was laid out before us, and I know that other people might say it was like a patchwork quilt, or something similar, and it was, I suppose, but I had no interest in the green fields that were our immediate surroundings.

I could only see the sea.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

After that, the drive seemed to go very quickly. I shoved my phone into my pocket and forgot it there for the rest of the time in the car - which was, in truth, something like forty-five minutes, although it seemed like much less. The house we ended up at was some bizarre mishmash of styles, as though there had been a very small house there once, which had been built and built and built upon, by generations of people, each who had a very unique personal style. Patience loved it, and I surprised myself by immediately feeling fond of it also.

As we dragged our overstuffed cases inside, Chivalry pointed up at the highest part of the house, a tiny tower off to one side.

“That’s where I used to stay, when I came here when I was your age. Younger, really. I thought you might like it. It has very good views.”

I gazed up at it. It looked, precarious, but interesting, and I told him so. He smiled at me. His teeth were very white in his dark face, and his eyes crinkled. It still shocked me, even after knowing him for some time, how alike we were, and I found myself smiling back.

“You came here a very long time ago,” he said. I glanced at Patience, certain he was talking to her, but he was still watching me.

“Do you remember it?” he said.

“No,” I replied honestly, “as far as I know, I have never seen the sea before.”

From up ahead, Patience huffed out a laugh.

“Seen it? You’ve done a sight more than see it, Fitz.”

She half turned in order to better see me - Patience cannot abide telling a story to someone if she cannot see their reaction - and immediately tripped over the case she was dragging.

Chivalry trotted forward to help her up, dusting her off and glancing at me over her head as she shook her fist at me in blame. I was not quite sure what his look meant, but her fall put a stop to all conversation until we were well inside and eating dinner, tucked round a little side table that had been dragged out of a cupboard.

“Nobody else is here yet,” said Patience, her mouth full of toast, “so we’ll have full access. We’re lucky we were closest, really, can you imagine what would have happened if a certain someone else had gotten here first-”

“Mm,” said Chivalry, taking the time to swallow, “we were lucky. But don’t you think that now is a good time to explain to Fitz _why_ we’re here?”

I looked up from where I was fastidiously cleaning my plate of egg yolk with a crust. They had been very close-lipped about our journey. I hadn’t even been allowed to tell my friends where I was going, and they had left the reason up to me to guess until now. I had spent a few very amusing hours following Patience around, making up more and more ridiculous excuses for the hurried packing she was doing, until she got fed up and wrestled me into an empty suitcase.

I had never before realised how difficult unzipping one from the inside was, but I do not recommend it.

Now, it seemed I was to be told the truth about our sudden seaside vacation. No doubt it would also explain Burrich’s absence. Since I had met Patience and Chivalry, I had never seen Burrich away from them for more than a few days, and the amount of clothes that had been packed meant we would be here for a fortnight at least.

“Fitz,” said Chivalry, looking very strange all of a sudden, “you must not tell anyone what I am about to tell you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Very well.”

Patience sat forward in her seat. The firelight flickered over them both, casting weird shapes into their faces. The hair on the back of my neck rose. I felt something was about to happen.

“Fitz,” said Chivalry again, “what do you know about Nereids?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay, Google,” I muttered hoarsely for what felt like the five hundreth time, “difference between Nereid and Oceanid- no, not difference between nerds and jocks, that’s nothing like what I- ugh.”

My phone fell to the sheets by my head and I rubbed my eyes wearily, feeling grit beneath my fingers. It was too late-early to be fighting with technology. The sky was already brightening outside the window and I knew that it would only be a short time before I would be hearing Patience rattling around, waiting for me to get up and ready for our expedition to the beach. I closed my eyes to review again what I had been told last night. We were here to investigate a sighting of a near-extinct humanoid, reportedly living off the coast of the land owned by the Farseer family. I thought again of the conversation we’d had, crowded round the fire..

 

“We must ensure that we can verify this,” Chivalry said, rubbing his forehead ruefully as he ducked under Patience’s wildly gesturing hands for the third time - this time successfully. “This is a huge tourist draw - this part of our holdings has been, ah..”

“A money drain,” said Patience bluntly, sitting down onto Chivalry’s lap without warning. He didn’t seem to mind. “Also, _nereidae_ are incredibly endangered. We cannot let the press and general public get a hold of this, Fitz. There are some bizarre people out there - yes, yes, rich coming from me, laugh it up, boy, but this is serious. You of all people know that people still commit hate crimes over people having the Wit, it’s not that far a stretch to assume there are whackjobs out there who would leap at the chance to destroy the only known extant example of a frankly _fascinating_ genus-”

“So, that’s why we’re here," said Chivalry to me as Patience devolved into impassioned muttering, “as we own the land, and therefore have every right to be here, and to take a holiday here, however sudden. I know the people of the town here well enough that they’ll respect my wishes to keep the Nereid a secret. Patience is here to do tests to ensure that it’s safe for the thing to be here, and you’re here because of your Wit. Your talent may mean you are able to communicate with it where we cannot.”

My head was spinning.

“And Burrich will be here soon,” continued Patience, seamlessly picking up where Chivalry had stopped. “He had to deal with the dogs and the horses, but he’ll take the bike down here and be here in a day or two, depending on his clients. We need him here. I’m worried that it might be hurt.”

“The Nereid?” I said blankly.

“No, the Easter Bunny. Of course the Nereid! Why else would it be so close to the coast? It doesn’t need to be here, it can survive just as well underwater as it can above it. _Nereidae_ can breathe air just as well they can water, there’s no reason for it to surface so close to land.”

“Weird,” I said, yawning. It was two o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, you’re worse than useless. Go and lie down somewhere, you can google for facts about Nereids yourself, I can’t be sitting here telling you things you’re not listening to.”

“Sorry, Patience.”

I did as I was told, curling up on a dusty couch nearby. I’d sleep in the tower room the next night, I decided.

It was at this point I started to check the web (I had to ask Patience for the spelling after I struggled with my phonetic ‘neareeyids’ attempt). Of course, despite my exhaustion, I was too interested in what I read there to sleep, ending up searching for as much information as I could - and so ending up at nearly five am, bleary and knowing well I'd wish I'd had the brains to rest.

“I’ll be well informed, at least,” I groaned, shoving my phone down the crease of the cushion at my head, hoping that perhaps I’d get twenty minutes or so before Patience decided dawn was late enough for us to sleep - enough for a power nap. I had the feeling I was going to need it.


End file.
